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Cape Cod’s Secret Artist Enclave

Before Cape Cod became, well, Cape Cod, it was known for its isolated beaches, rolling sand dunes, picturesque New England fishing towns, and bohemian, "anything goes" attitude: basically, the perfect backdrop for a gang of young, self-taught architects inspired by European design to play around with form and space unnoticed by the establishment. The result is a collection of almost one-hundred examples of early modern design dating from the 1930s to the 1970s, tucked on the wooded back shore of Wellfleet on the Outer Cape. It is here, within the boundaries of Cape Cod National Seashore, where you will find summer homes that meld the philosophy of modernism with the practicality of New England.

The Cape Cod Modern House Trust (CCMHT) was formed in 2007 with the aim of preserving these homes and making them available (and suitable) for habitation once again. Due to their location on federally owned land and a lack of funding for preservation, most of these homes were scheduled for demolition until CCMHT stepped in. The Hatch House, pictured above, was one of the CCMHT's first undertakings. As we explored in our article on beach houses, summer residence architecture plays by different rules than homes meant for year-round use. This is especially true in Cape Cod, which is often subject to the brutal winter storms. The Hatch House, designed by Jack Hall for The Nation editor Jack Hatch and his wife Ruth, an artist, takes these factors into consideration.

This is a series of photographs taken by Jack Hall of the Hatch House soon after its completion. Inspired by the idea of "cubes in a grid", Hall designed the rooms as discrete elements, using exterior space to separate them. The home is elevated above the dunes and has wooden shutters that can be pulled down to shield the home from both bitter winds and intruders.

Americans weren't the only ones playing with space on the Outer Cape. One reason that this particular area is so architecturally intriguing is the presence of summer homes designed and lived-in by some of the leading lights of early European Modernism, such as Hungarian-born Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer. Above, Breuer is pictured in front of his Cape Cod home for a spread in Life magazine.

Here's a photo of the Breur House as it is today, slowly being reclaimed by the landscape. You can see why intervention is needed to keep these lightweight, low-cost masterpieces from disintegrating completely.

While Breuer's home is not currently not on the Cape Cod Modern House Trust website as a project for renovation, a sign still stands indicating that the architect – most famous for his Wassily Chair and designing the Whitney Museum – once dwelled in the area.

But, as this sign shows, Breuer wasn't the only one.

This particular Saarinen house had nothing to do with Eero and everything to do with his ex-wife, Lillian, who settled in this 1960 abode designed by Finish architect Olav Hammarstrom.

There is also the Colony at Wellfleet, a private club turned small hotel made up of 10 Bauhaus inspired cottages designed by Nathanial Saltonstall. Once the Colony was sold in 1963 to current caretaker Eleanor Stefani, it became a hub for literary figures and movie stars (Paul Newman and Faye Dunaway were frequent guests) alike to enjoy modern design on the Outer Cape.

But the question remains: why did this international community of architects, who could've gone anywhere, choose Cape Cod over, say, the flashier realms of California or New York? It was entirely due to Jack Phillips, a wealthy Bostonian who'd studied at Harvard under Walter Gropius. Enamored by the modernist architecture he'd seen in Europe (above is a photo of Phillips' self-designed painting studio on the Cape; it's since fallen into the sea), Phillips envisioned a neighborhood made up of modernist houses, inhabited by the architects themselves.

When he inherited 800 acres of land on the Outer Cape, Phillips invited friends from Europe to come explore the area and build homes that combined the new ideals of modernism with the tradition of New England "saltbox" architecture. The rise of Nazism and the threat of war was all the encouragement these radicals needed. Serge Chermayeff was the first, followed by Breuer and Paul Weidlinger. Phillips sold land to them all. Above, the Kugel/Gips House designed by Charlie Zehnder.

To understand why the particular landscape of Cape Cod proved so inspirational to modernist architects, we must go back to Henry David Thoreau, the American trancendentalist who wrote about the rugged beauty of the area in Cape Cod (you can read the entire thing here; we recommend chapter 5, "The Wellfleet Oysterman".)

Thoreau's conception of returning to purest nature in order to to discover a deeper understanding of oneself is reflected in these modernist houses: the integration of indoor and outdoor spaces, the privileging of the needs of the environment over the will of man, the idea that the built world must complement the natural world, rather than the other way around. Cape Cod was, in many ways, a blank, wind-swept canvas for these artists to experiment with form in a way that's still influential today.

It's unfortunate that so few people are aware of the plight of these very special houses. If you're the owner of a modernist masterpiece moldering on Cape Cod National Seashore, let us know! We'll turn your run-down cottage into a fabulous vacation rental for chic nomads everywhere.

Visit the Cape Cod Modern House Trust to learn more about the current homes being restored, and how you can save them from being reclaimed by the landscape or demolished by the government.

I lived in Provincetown, Truro or Wellfleet (the three towns at the tip of Cape Cod) from 1970 until December, 2012. I have visited many of the Modernist Houses and I was a friend of Charlie Zhender, who also designed the renovation of my house on Mayflower Heights. In 2009, my interview with architect Mark Hammer was published in Provincetown Arts magazine. Mark has studied the Modernist Houses on the Outer Cape, and curated an exhibition about Modernist Houses at the Provincetown Art Association & Museum. He also started a tour of Modernist Houses as a fundraiser for the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill. Mark has worked with owners of Modernist Houses to build additions that blend well with original designs, and to help protect and preserve the original houses.

I love this article. We used to live in the US when I was a child. My mother once took us over to look at the Breuer house. We used to vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, it all felt so free and spacious when I think back.
It is interesting to me how American Houses just stand in the landscape. I live in Europe and we shape the land around our houses as well (placing hedges, fences, making terraces and planting stuff etc).

There’s a few of these modernist houses near my parents’ place in Eastham. The land is part of the National Seashore now, so the federal government ownes them and they’re vacant and kind of falling apart. Lovely area, though.

Good point, Michael.
We’ve just completed a new house in W.Falmouth, designed mostly for my wife (who spent summers in Osterville) and me as well. Our compromise was an exterior look that followed “Cape tradition,” but fully Modern inside.
What we learned in building this winterized house was mainly informed by our builder, Nat Ross of Village Restoration, who had a firm knowledge of what keeps the water and wind out. Thanks to him, we have a house that will last a few lifetimes.
RM

My parents bought a modernist beach house in Wellfleet in 1960 and later on Charles Zendher did a major renovation. I now have had the interesting problem of modifying and adding to this base 3 times is various forms. Winterizing, is the first point none of these original houses, whether by Breur, or Zhender himself dealt with, or cared about this, to the point were it actually was irresponsible. For instance the use of interior materials in exterior uses or total disregard to driving rains. That is why these houses all fall apart.
As Michael McKinnel FAIA a teacher of mine at GSD once said ” Architecture is the art of bringing water to the ground”. On the Cape one should know that when you really live with the environment.